Incinerator is not the answer to island’s trash problem
My name is Richard Creagan, M.D. I have been a human genetics researcher at Yale University, a medical director of a biotech company, a farmer for more than 20 years and a board certified emergency medicine specialist. I am currently the state representative for District 5, representing Kona to Ka‘u. I am writing in regard to the proposed waste-to-energy incinerator.
One thing is very clear from my medical and legislative experience. There are always unintended consequences of our actions; there are always unforeseen consequences. In the case of a waste to energy incinerator, there are many possible and inevitable bad unintended and unforeseen consequences, but the science is clear that even under the best case there will be great harm to our environment and ourselves that will last for many generations from such a plant.
It seems like a simple solution, but it is not and should not be undertaken. The financial costs are huge, but the environmental and human costs are vastly more.
This is a terrible solution to a problem that has other solutions. The poisons, including dioxins, produced by such a plant under the best of circumstances are horrible, but as we all know these plants are never operated optimally and will inevitably be shut down at great cost.
Let us not be stampeded into this horrible solution.
Richard P. Creagan, M.D.,
State House representative District 5
Naalehua
Solution to police violence may be female officers
No doubt being a police officer is a difficult and demanding job. Often days of boredom are interrupted by life threatening terror. Very few people are cut out for it. Some do not realize the job is not for them until they are confronted with a life or death decision.
Perhaps there is a nonintuitive solution. More female officers. Men — the hunters — instinctively confront force with force. Women — the nurturers — have evolved to use other means, because force is not usually an option.
Our tribal instinct is to keep our females safe, but in a modern world that is a less important strategy. I recall the female high school principal who talked down a would-be-shooter, before the police snipers arrived.
Ken Obenski
Kaohe, South Kona
Developers must build connector
Now we can’t afford it. Why does that not surprise anyone?
Palamanui now cries what nearly every developer has cried each time their eyes are bigger than their stomach. They cannot afford to uphold their end of the bargain. They should have to, it’s how they got the approval in the first place.
We must have the mauka-makai connector as promised. By now, asking for community input is ridiculous.
The developers had our input when the community said OK, but the development has to build the road.
Quit treating taxpayers like they are idiots.
C. Carraway
Kona